9 



^ ^dlm^, 



I- 



\ ''^ 



the: 



DREAM OF BONAPARTE. 



A NAPOLEONIC STUDY. 



WILLIAM POLAND, S. J., 
ft 

Saint Louts University. 



SAINT LOUIS: 
5. HERDER, 17 S. Broadway 



O . K Qn^^ 



Copyright, 1897, 
By WILLIAM POLAND. 



- .' 8 






Little & Becker Press. 



THE 

DREAM OF BONAPARTE. 




HE question of "Pope and Emperor" has 
always been a favorite one with those 
who have professed to write the philo- 
sophical commentary upon the events of Christian 
history. The reason for this attraction is not hard 
to find. In all the conflicts which the Popes have 
had to sustain against the aggressions of civil 
rulers, the principles at stake are always clearly 
defined and of deep moment. In each conflict, the 
opening, progress and conclusion of the storm 
stand out, as it were, in great serial illustrations that 
offer to the philosophical historian material which 
he cannot find elsewhere in human records. The 
forecast of the storm, namely, the wilful variations 
of men from the laws which should guide their 
motives; the overcast sky; the distant rumbling of 
the powers of darkness; the crash; the opening 
of the flood-gates, and the pouring down of the 
torrents of human passion; the passing of the 
tempest, borne away by its own momentum; stars 
that herald the morn, gleaming through the rifts; 
and then — sunshine for a season over those whom 
the storm has been able only to purify: this is 
the history of the struggle between the Popes and 
the Emperors — emperors of Rome, emperors of 



4 TJie Dream of Bonaparte. 

Constantinople, emperors of Germany, emperors 
of France. They have all passed away with their 
dynasties: the Pope remains. 

The outline of every chapter is substantially 
the same, from the day when St. Peter entered the 
Mamertine, or, if you wish, from the time when 
St. Melchiades emerged from the catacombs^ to 
the hour when Pius IX. retired to the Vatican. We 
shall follow, here, in more or less detail, a chapter 
which is of present interest; which embraces events 
now distant enough to be called history; and 
which will exhibit to us, in contrast and in conflict, 
the meekest man of his age and the most pov/erful 
and most warlike emperor of all the ages, Pope 
Pius VII. and Napoleon Bonaparte. 

Napoleon Bonaparte was born in the island of 
Corsica. The date most generally accepted as 
that of his birth is the fifteenth of August, 1769. 
When in his tenth year, he was sent to the 
military school of Brienne. He was transferred 
thence, at the age of fifteen, to the school in 
Paris. In the course of two years he received his 
first commission, as sub-lieutenant of artillery. 
Shortly after, he was raised to the rank of lieu- 
tenant ; and in 1792 we find him captain of 
artillery at the age of twenty-three. He was 
present in Paris at that memorable scene, June 
20th, 1792, when the mob forced poor Louis XVI. 
to appear, at the windov/, in the red bonnet of the 
revolution. Bonaparte remarked, at the time, that 
the King could have settled the whole matter with 
a little grape-shot. In September of the next year, 



TJie Dream of Bonaparte. 5 

1793, he was ordered down to the Mediterranean. 
The fortified city of Toulon was in the hands of 
the English and Spanish. The young captain 
began to study the situation; and, after a month 
of investigation, he presented to the council of 
war a plan for the reduction of the city. The plan 
was accepted ; and he himself was entrusted with 
the execution of it. He carried it out successfully. 
After the capitulation, General Dugommier wrote to 
the Committee of Safety, the existing government, 
that it would be well to reward this young man and 
to promote him — or he would promote himself. 
As governments were following, one the other, like 
winds, the Committee of Safety, consulting its own 
safety, appointed Bonaparte brigadier-general of 
artillery, on February 6th, 1794. At this time he 
wanted two weeks of being twenty-four years and 
six months of age. On September 15th of the next 
year, 1795, his name was stricken from the list of 
officers in service, because he refused a post to 
which he was assigned. Here, then, in Paris, 
twenty-six years of age, idle, waiting to find or to 
make an opportunity which he might choose to think 
fit for his abilities, stood this very small man whom 
we have been made to look upon as the colossus 
of these recent centuries. We are, as yet, hardly far 
enough away from him to get the true effects, the 
prominences and the depressions of his character 
and of his genius : and the analysis of his entangled 
career as a factor in modern history, is still an intri- 
cate and vexing task, because society is now widely 
influenced by pernicious influences which he found 



6 The Dream of Bonaparte. 

local, and which he controlled by turning them 
loose upon the rest of the world as it stood in 
opposition. The story of his life is a strange epic: 
and the literature of his life forms a library, by 
itself. 

When Bonaparte was leaving the school, at 
Paris, the illustrious mathematician, Monge, one of 
his professors, gave this report of him: 

"Reserved and studious — -prefers study to 
amusement — likes to read good authors. . . De- 
voted to abstract sciences — does not care for the 
others — thorough in mathematics and geography. 
Silent — loves solitude. . . Capricious — 
haughty — strong bent to egoism. . . Speaks 
little — energetic in his answers — quick and severe in 
reply. . . Much self love. . . Ambitious — 
aspires to everything. . . . . . This young 

man is worth being protected." 

This egoism, already so marked in the young 
man, grew with the development of his genius and 
the manifestation of his power. We are anticipat- 
ing ; but it is as well for us to have here some outline 
that may serve in the way of frontispiece. In 
Bonaparte the ego, self, is everything. ■ Over-con- 
scious of his superb genius, he is simply monumental 
in his impudence. Of himself he said, "I am 
something different from the rest of the world. I 
accept conditions from no man." 

As we look at the great figure of Bonaparte, 
what we see everywhere is genius ; but it is genius 
that has declared its own emancipation from the 
guiding restraint of moral principle. His memory 



The Dream of Bonaparte. 7 

was marvelous in every respect: for the extent of 
its range; for the tenacity v^ith which it held to 
what it had once taken in; for the exactness with 
which it could reproduce the fact needed; for the 
submissiveness with which it allowed itself to be 
turned from one exercise to another. Constructive 
imagination, which I would venture to put down as 
the most highly developed of his gifts, spread out 
the vast stores of his memory as a great map over 
which the higher power, the intellect, soared; and 
his action was swift and sure, like the swoop of the 
eagle on its' prey. Pride sometimes made him err, 
when imagination had built up worlds upon too 
grand a scale. But he had the artist's gift pre- 
eminent. How did he give this gift its outlet? In 
the terrible art of war. What masterpiece did he 
leave? The fair face of Europe bleeding. 

His body was as restless as his mind. Mr. 
Campbell, the English commissary, who was sent 
with him to Elba, wrote: "Yesterday, after a walk 
under the hot sun from five o'clock in the morning 
until three o'clock in the afternoon, and after having 
visited the frigates and the transports, he went out 
on horseback for three hours— to untire himself, he 
said." 

As the greatest mihtary artist, he certainly stands 
apart. He has made a height for himself. There is 
but one, perhaps, who can see his summit — Han- 
nibal. 

Was he an organizer and an administrator, with- 
al? He was careful to attend, when possible, all the 
sessions of the Council of State; and he supervised 



8 The Dream of Bonaparte. 

and directed all the details of its work. When 
Consul, he said of the old officials, "I am older, as 
an administrator, than they are." In fact, he had 
been managing the most unmanageable portion of 
the French nation in personally-conducted tours to 
every country of Europe, as well as to Asia and 
Africa. Yet, ambition always goes with him, as a 
universal blight. He never wins to cultivate, but 
only to create a stepping-stone to further glory. He 
might have established the blessings of permanent 
peace, with all Europe to applaud him. He had it 
in his power to give to the nations a peace-Constitu- 
tion which would, perhaps, have served them to this 
day. But, instead, he preferred to play the part of 
the politico-military gambler, the hero of gigantic 
throws, always on the look-out for a chance of risk- 
ing all to gain more. And thus, in the end, the 
herculean energies of his genius are usually found 
concentrated upon the production of some chef 
d'oevre of war; and when this is finished, and he 
has sated his ambition and love of adulation with his 
uses of it, his fancy is again busy projecting pan- 
oramas still more splendid, which will, eventuall}^ 
have to be executed in the blood of unoffending 
peoples. 

With the artistic and poetic and nervous temper- 
ament, of course he was an orator; and his speeches 
to his armies were always bristling with eloquence. 
His writings are oratorical, because they are dic- 
tated. He eventually lost all command of the pen 
and could not read his own writing. His spelling 
was defective. Pen work was too slow for him. His 



The Dream of Bonaparte. 9 

private secretaries had to use a kind of short-hand. 
Madame de Remusat, tells us that he dictated whilst 
walking rapidly to and fro ; and that, when he was 
animated, his language was mixed with violent impre- 
cations and even with oaths which the secretaries 
suppressed and which, adds the same, gave the 
secretaries time to catch up with him. 

But this is picture enough. We left him in 
Paris, in 1795, at the age of twenty-six, without a 
commission. His ambition was moving him to go off 
to the Orient to organize the artillery of the Sultan. 
But something presented itself in two or three 
weeks. A moderate party rose, in Paris, against the 
actual government of the Convention (which had 
just passed its eight thousand three hundred laws) 
and bid fair to defeat the Convention in the new 
usurpation by which the latter demanded two-thirds 
of the seats, in the coming elections, for its own 
members who were holding office. The Conven- 
tion, terrified, called in Bonaparte. Whilst others 
were discussing, he had his cannon around the 
Tuileries ; and on the morrow he leaped from his 
disgrace to the command of the army of the interior. 
But now, having risen to command, he found no 
outlet-for his activity, at home. So, in the next year, 
1796, at the age of twenty-seven, he obtained com- 
mand in Italy. He put his foot in the stirrup and 
everything went like lightning. He called together 
his generals, and laid down the plan of campaign; 
then, falling sudden like the rapid flashes of the 
thunder-cloud, he cut to pieces, crushed, routed the 
enemy, Sardinians and Austrians, — and captured as 



lo TJie Dream of Bonaparte. 

many troops as he himself had set out with. Every 
stroke was a victory — Turin, Savoy, Nice, Milan, all. 
Lombardy, Lonato, Castiglione, Bassano, Areola, 
Rivoli. At thirty-one leagues from Vienna, acting 
as supreme ruler, he dictated his treaty to the 
Emperor ; established three Republics ; and, then, 
retired to private life, just one year from the time 
he had entered on command. In the next year, 
1798, being tired of rest he was commissioned to 
Egypt. On the way, he entered Malta as a guest of 
the Knights and pillaged their churches and muse- 
ums. Then he was off to Africa, to Asia. Calling 
himiself the '^favorite of Allah,'' he played Mameluke 
under the shadow of the Pyramids ; and, next. 
Crusader, under the walls of Acre, in Palestine. 
But, hearing that France was again in anarchy, he 
eluded the vigilance of the British fleet that was 
patrolling the Mediterranean, and, stepping into the 
council chamber of the Directory at Paris, coolly 
stated that he had come to give the Republic a more 
fitting Constitution. "Down with the tyrant," they 
cried, "outlaw the dictator!" and his grenadiers 
hurried him away in their arms. He was still 
standing in the street, speaking to Sieyes about the 
unfortunate result, when his brother Lucien, presi- 
dent of the Assembly, came to tell him that they 
were going to outlaw him. "Why," said Sieyes, 
"turn them out." So he turned them out; took the 
title of First Consul; opened France to the Ref- 
ugees ; abolished the pagan rites and festivals of the 
Revolution ; and restored the freedom of Catholic 
worship. 



TJie Dream of Bonaparte 



II 



Pope Pius VI. had just died of ill-treatment at 
Valence (Aug. 28, 1799), having been dragged by 
the Directorjr, for a long year, through the towns of 
Italy and France. In the year 1800, thirty-five car- 
dinals met on the island of St. George, in Venice, 
and gave to Pius VI. a successor, in the person of 
Barnabas Chiaramonti, who took the name of Pius 
VII. Pius VII. announced his accession to the 
Bishops of the Church, just when Napoleon was 
scahng the Alps. The First Consul fell hke an ava- 
lanche into the plains of Lombardy; and whilst the 
world was still thrilhng with the story of Marengo, 
he had a Te Deum sung in the great Cathedral of 
Milan. Was it here, in the midst of this magnificent 
ceremony, as the vaults of the great temple threw 
back the echoed voices of the thousands who had 
come at his bidding to pour forth the hymn of 
thanksgiving, was it here that he conceived the idea 
— entered on the day-dream — which we shall now 
trace through the fourteen years during which he 
kept all Europe at the point of his sword — the idea 
of ruling not the mere bodies but the consciences of 
men? "They keep the soul for themselves," said 
he, later, oi the priests, "and they throw me the 
carcass." 

He had arranged to treat with the Papal Com- 
missioner, at Turin. But now, student of effect, he 
must have a Papal Envoy extraordinary, coming to 
Paris, standing in the crowd, and seeking audience 
of the First Consul at the Tuileries. So he broke 
up the arrangement and went away to his Capital. 
Cardinal Spina was then sent to Paris to settle the 



12 TJie Dream of Bonaparte. 

basis of a Concordat between Rome and the Repub- 
lic, for the re-establishment of religion. Spina 
found Napoleon surrounded by such men as Talley- 
rand, ex-Bishop of Autun, and the best leaven of 
Gallicanism — which, briefly, means religious insub- 
ordination. Spina could do nothing, and had to 
return to Rome. Then, Napoleon sent his own 
envoy to Rome. The envoy was instructed to treat 
v/ith the Pope as if he were the commander of two 
hundred thousand men; and to finish the matter in 
five days. The demands were inadmissible; and 
Cardinal Consalvi was, at once, dispatched to Paris, 
— Consalvi, Minister of Pius VI., Prime Minister of 
Pius VII., the "Roman Siren," the master of hearts. 
What a conquest, what a morsel for the First Consul! 
Tired after his journey of fifteen days the Cardinal 
was called upon to present himself. It was a jour 
de parade.^ one of those magnificent levees which 
Napoleon held every fortnight. The Cardinal was 
led up through the glittering assemblage. Bonaparte 
addressed him: "I know why you have come to 
France. Let the conferences begin at once. I give 
you five days. If the business is not ended in that 
time, you must return to Rome. I have made up 
my mind as to what is to be done in such event." 
Consalvi drew the five days out to twenty-seven. 
The Concordat, drawn up by him and the Consul's 
Commissioners, was sent to Napoleon, and sent back 
to be signed by Consalvi and the Commissioners. 
Consalvi claimed the right of signing first, for the 
Pontiff; and as the parchment was unrolled, lo ! his 
rapid eye discovered that Napoleon had caused to be 



The Dream of Bonaparte. 13 

copied out the rejected plan, and had, besides, 
charged it with inadmissible points. Consalvi re- 
fused to sign this Consular forgery. Bonaparte was 
mated. But it had been announced that the^ 
Concordat was to be proclaimed, next day, at a 
dinner of more than three hundred covers. It was 
four o'clock in the afternoon. The Commissioners 
and Consalvi were determined not to be found want- 
ing in good will. So they set to work again; and, 
laboring without intermission, had produced a new 
document by one o'clock the next afternoon. From 
this document was omitted one point which Bona- 
parte insisted upon, and which the Pope had previously 
refused to grant, at Rome. Consalvi declared that 
it could not be inserted without the formal consent 
of the Pope. Joseph Bonaparte carried a copy of 
the new proposals to his brother. But, before two 
o'clock, he was back again, telling the Commission 
that the First Consul was in a rage, and had torn the 
paper into a hundred pieces ; that he demanded the 
insertion of the article or the breaking off of ail 
negotiations ; and that at the great dinner of the day 
he would announce either the signature or the 
rupture . 

"It is easy to imagine," writes Consalvi, "the 
consternation into which we were thrown by such a 
message. It wanted but three hours of five o'clock 
when we were all to be present at the dinner. It is 
impossible to tell all that was said by the brother of 
the First Consul and by the two others to decide me 
to yield. The picture of the horrible consequences 
which would follow the rupture was terrifying. They 



14 The Dream of Bonaparte. 

told me that I was ^oing to make myself responsible 
for all these disasters which would come upon 
France, upon nearly all Europe, upon my Sovereign, 
upon Rome. They told me that, at Rome, I would 
be charged with an inopportune inflexibility, and that 
I would be blamed for having provoked the conse- 
quences of the refusal. I suffered an agony of 
death. All that they described stood out before my 
eyes. I was (it is lawful for me to say it) as the 
Man of sorrows. But duty carried the day ; with the 
aid of heaven, I did not betray 'it. I held to my 
refusal during the two hours of this struggle, and the 
negotiations were broken off. 

'^Thus ended this sad session of twenty-four 
entire hours, begun towards four o'clock on the day 
preceding and closing shortly before four o'clock of 
this unhappy day, with great physical suffering, as 
may be understood, but with still greater moral 
suffering, such, indeed, as one must feel, to form an 
idea of it." 

The dinner was at five o'clock. Consalvi 
entered. When Napoleon saw him he burst out: 
''Well, Monsieur le Cardinal, you wish to break off. 
Let it be so. I have no need of Rome. I will act 
by myself. If Henry VIII., who had not the twen- 
tieth part of my power, could undertake to change 
the religion of his country and could succeed in the 
undertaking, I know still better how to do it, and 
I am better able to do it, too. In changing religion 
in France, I shall change it in nearly the whole of. 
Europe, — wheresoever the influence of my power 
dominates. Rome will see its losses. It will weep 



TJie Dream of Bonaparte. 15 

over them. But there will be no remedy. You 
may go; and that is the best thing you can do. You 
have wished to break off. Well, be it so, since you 
wish it. When do you leave?" 

* 'After dinner, general." 

Napoleon, seeing that the Cardinal was proof 
against intimidation, called for a new discussion. 
The next day, at noon, Consalvi went into session 
for twelve hours. The objectionable point was this : 
"Worship shall be public; but conformable to the 
regulations of the police." Napoleon might m^ean 
anything by this. Consalvi modified it thus : "in so 
far as public order and tranquility are concerned." 
Joseph Bonaparte carried the modification to his 
brother. Napoleon yielded. Consalvi was stepping 
into his carriage to depart. Napoleon must strike a 
last blow. He sent word that he wanted the contents 
of the Bull that accompanied the Concordat. Con- 
salvi at once sat down for eight hours ; produced the 
memorandum that baffled the Consul; and, immedi- 
ately after, set out for Rome. Napoleon published 
the Concordat. By it, religion was restored in 
France. " 

On the second of August, 1802, the First Consul 
had himself proclaimed Consul for life. But he 
coveted the diadem ; and on May 18, 1804, he 
assumed the title of Emperor. 

We may pass over the scenes connected with 
the coronation: the condescension of Pius VII. in 
going to Paris — the refusal of the Pontiff to crown 
Josephine without a previous marriage (for there 
had been but a civil marriage, which had taken place 



1 6 TJie Dream of Bonaparte. 

on March 19, 1796)— the wrath of Napoleon — the 
midnight marriage — the clutching of the crown — the 
broken plight — the many disgraceful episodes that 
no respectable civilian would care to leave in the 
traditions of his family. But there were incidents 
during the Pontiff's stay in Paris, which marked, 
even thus early, as a faithful weather-vane, the 
direction of the imperial aspirations, and gave a 
premonition of the storm. Napoleon had instructed 
one of his courtiers to broach to Pius — accidentally 
— the possibility of the Pope again taking up his 
abode at Avignon or even at Paris. Pius answered 
that he had provided against such an emergency; 
that if he were detained now, his abdication was 
already signed and in the hands of Cardinal Pigna- 
telli, at Palermo; and that they would thus have 
captured only Barnabas Chiaramonti. Through 
Napoleon's fear of being eclipsed by the Pontifical 
splendor, Pius said mass, on Christmas-da}^ in an 
obscure church of Paris ; his departure was hastened 
before the ceremonies of Easter, for which festival 
it was managed that he should not even be at L3^ons ; 
and, before the departure, Napoleon appeared bear- 
ing upon his own escutcheon the Papal keys. 

The Pontiff entered Rome. Napoleon went to 
Milan and crowned himself, with the Iron Crown of 
Lombardy, as King of Italy. And, now, there 
occurred an event which made him see that he could 
still be opposed by conscience; and that there was a 
power w^hich he could not subdue, and which he 
must, therefore, sequestrate. His brother, young 
Jerome Bonaparte, had gone to America and had 



TJie Dream of Bonaparte. 17 

been married, to Miss Patterson at Baltimore. Napo- 
leon refused Mrs. Jerome Bonaparte entry to the 
continent, and then called upon the Pope to declare 
the marriage null — for Miss Patterson was a Protest- 
ant! Pius answered, that the demand exceeded his 
power; and that, were he to make such a declaration, 
he would become guilty of a great crime in the sight 
of God. The coloring of Catholicity with which 
Napoleon tried to cover his motives, rapidly faded 
under the rays of royalty. For, a little later, he had 
no objection whatsoever to Jerome's substituting for 
his lawful wife another Protestant who was Princess 
of Wiirtemberg. 

We are studying him without his battles. He 
now marched from glory to glory; defeated two 
emperors; made and unmade kings and queens; and 
remodeled the map of Europe. He occupied a part of 
the Papal States, and wrote to the Pope: . . . . 
"Your holiness is the Sovereign, but I am the 
Emperor of Rome. All my enemies must be your 
enemies. It is not becoming that any agent of the 
King of Sardinia, or that any Englishman, Russian 
or Swede, should reside in Rome or in your States, 
or that a vessel belonging to these powers should 
enter your ports. . . ." Pius replied that there 
was no Emperor of Rome; that the Pope would not 
betray his trust; that his mission was a mission of 
peace ; and that he could harbor no enmities, as 
suggested, towards those who were separated from 
the unity of the apostolic see. 

Napoleon laid the blame of his defeat upon Con- 
salvi; and Consalvi resigned, to let Napoleon and 






1 8 The Dream of Bonaparte. 

the world see that Pius was acting for himself. And 
here we have the example of a Sovereign, the two 
hundred and fifty-eighth of an uninterrupted succes- 
sion, his only weapons right and conscience, at issue 
with a warrior greater than Hannibal or Alexander ; 
championing the rights of a Protestant girl, whom he 
does not know, from distant Maryland; championing 
the rights of a Protestant realm whose dealings with 
his Catholic brethren stand beside those of the Roman 
Empire under Nero and Diocletian. We may under- 
stand the value of this resolution of conscience, if 
we put these refusals beside the concessions of the 
Concordat, in which Pius had exercised his jurisdic- 
tion as no one of his two hundred and fifty-seven 
predecessors had ever done. He had extinguished 
one hundred and thirty-five Episcopal and Archiepis- 
copal sees in France, and twenty-four in the annexed 
provinces; and, in their stead, he had erected sixty 
new sees. He had made concessions regarding the 
alienation of Church property seized during the 
Revolution, and regarding the nomination to Ecclesi- 
astical offices, such as had never been made to earthly 
potentate; and, still, when there is question of extin- 
guishing the rights of a Protestant merchant's 
daughter from over the sea, or of closing his ports to 
a Protestant power, he can only say "Non possumus" 
"it may not be done." Napoleon then sent word, 
that he would take the rest of the papal territory and 
confer it on whom he pleased. The revenues were 
seized, and when an officer of the papal treasury 
asked the executor of this imperial brigandage, "by 
what right?" he was told: "You serve a small 



The Dream of Bonaparte. 19 

prince and I a mighty sovereign," — a principle of 
justice which may be blazoned upon the arms of every 
invader of Rome. 

Napoleon had now a fourth European coalition 
to put down — England, Russia, Prussia He ground 
Prussia to powder. (Jena, Oct. 14, 1806). He 
swept away those marvelous troops of Frederick ; and 
from the royal palace in Berlin wrote to Mgr. Arezzo 
of Saleucia to notify Pius VII. that he must join the 
French Confederation. Then he crushed Russia ; 
and, at the Treaty of Tilsit (July 8, 1807), parcelled 
out Europe between himself and the Czar. Two 
weeks later, July 22, on his return to Dresden, he 
wrote two letters which open up to us his character 
as an arch-prevaricator. The letters were written 
to Eugene de Beauharnais, his stepson, whom he 
had adopted and made Vicero}^ of Italy. One of 
the letters was addressed to Eugene, although it 
was really penned for the Pope to whom Eugene 
was directed to send it. The other, Eugene was 
ordered to copy, sign with his own name, and 
address to the Pope, as though it came spontaneously 
from himself. The letter which was ostensibly for 
his son but really for Pius, and which contains an 
abundance of insulting language, is the famous doc- 
ument wherein we read those memorable words too 
truly brought to a consummation: "What does Pius 
VII. mean by denouncing me to Christendom? 
Would he put my throne under an interdict, or 
excommunicate me? Does he imagine that their 
arms will fall from the hands of my soldiers? . 
." Then he goes on to speak of * 'infuriated 
Popes," of their duty of imitating St. Peter and St. 



20 The Dream of Bonaparte. 

Paul and the Holy Apostles — of ''foolish conduct" — 
of meddling in his affairs — that if it does not stop, 
he will regard the Pope as his other Bishops — of 
calHng a general Council, etc. Then Prince Eugene 
is commanded to add, as though from himself, that 
the letter was not intended for the eyes of his Holi- 
ness ; and the whole concludes with an order, that 
the letter be delivered to the Pope, and that word be 
sent to the Emperor when this order shall have been 
executed by M. Alquier, his representative at Rome. 
In October, 1807, Napoleon wrote to Murat and 
to Prince Eugene, instructions for the occupation of 
Rome. Accordingly, at the opening of the year 
1808, a plot was laid to compromise the Pope. A 
division of the French troops was detailed, under 
General Miollis, to enter Rome on the second day of 
February. M. Alquier's official announcement to 
the Pope was, that the troops were simply en route 
for Naples. Then Alquier had the truth spread 
abroad, but unofficially, that the entry was to be a 
real occupation. Next, false orders, coming appar- 
ently from the Holy See, and to be laid, later, to the 
charge of Pacca and Consalvi, were communicated 
to the Papal troops in the barracks. According to 
these orders, the Papal troops were to open fire upon 
the French, as soon as the latter had passed the Porta 
Popoli. It was a scheme to make the Pope an 
aggressor, a violator of hospitality; and, thus, to lend 
a shadow of justice and necessity to the real intent of 
seizure. But the Pope was notified of the whole 
design ; and Alquier was summoned, by an official 
note from the Secretary of State, to present himself 



The Dream of Bonaparte . 21 

to the Pontiff, on the thirtieth of January. On the 
thirtieth day of January, Pius, invested with his pon- 
tifical cope, and seated on his throne, had gathered 
all the cardinals and prelates around him, when 
Alquier was introduced. After administering to 
Alquier a scathing rebuke for his treachery, he closed 
with the following words: *'Tell your sovereign that 
our resolve cannot be shaken. If at any time he 
wishes to have us carried off into exile, he has but to 
give the order. But let him know that we shall then 
be only a simple Benedictine monk, Gregory Barna- 
bas Chiaramonti. Tell him that, against this event, 
the Pope that will be then, has already been elected ; 
and that the Emperor himself will thus be pro- 
mulgating the choice of our successor. Do you 
understand? You may retire." 

The second of February came. Rome was 
invaded under the pretence of accustoming "the peo- 
ple of Rome and the French troops to live together," 
but, at the same time, under orders from the Emperor 
that the least uprising was to be quelled by the use of 
effective measures. The cannon were pointed at the 
windows of the Papal apartments whilst the Pontiff 
was celebrating the Holy Sacrifice. All was done 
with the greatest secrecy. Napoleon had complete 
possession of press and post, and not a word of the 
proceedings was printed. Twenty-one Cardinals 
were driven away. Pius said: "We are prepared. 
. Blessed are they who suffer persecution 
for justice." 

In March, the Pontiff recalled his legate from 
Paris. Napoleon replied by signing a decree, on 



22 The Dream of Bonaparte. 

April 2, for the incorporation of the Pontifical States 
into the Empire. But, just then, he was busy at his 
game of "kings." We find him at Bayonne, where 
he had invited Charles IV. of Spain and the latter's 
son Ferdinand VII. to meet him. He induces Ferdi- 
nand to resign all rights in favor of Charles, and 
then publishes the abdication of Charles which has 
been previously obtained. Joseph Bonaparte is 
transferred from the throne of Naples to that of 
Spain; and the crown of Naples is put upon the 
head of Murat. 

After the resignation of Consalvi, pro-secretaries 
had succeeded, one the other, rapidly enough: 
Casoni, Doria, Gabrielli. Doria was ordered to quit 
Rome and return to Genoa. Gabrielli was seized 
and carried back to Sinigaglia. So, in the June of 
this year, 1808, Pius appointed Cardinal Pacca to 
the vacant post of Secretary of State. General 
Miollis signified to Pacca the order he had received 
from Napoleon, to shoot or hang anyone who should 
offer resistance. Pacca answered that he would 
obey the commands of his own sovereign, whatever 
might befall. On the 6th of September, officers 
came to the Secretary, with an order for him to leave 
Rome, under an escort of dragoons, in twenty-four 
hours. Pacca replied, that, in Rome, he took orders 
from the Pope alone. He was allowed to send a 
note to the Pope. Presently, the door flew open. 
Pius entered, saying: "I command my Minister not 
to obey the injunctions of unlawful authority;" and, 
taking his Cardinal by the hand, he led him away to 
his own apartments, where the Pope and his Minister 



TJie Dream of Bonaparte. 23 

lived together, for nearly a year, prisoners in the 
Quirinal. 

The affairs of the summer and autumn bode ill 
for the reign of the new king, Joseph, who was not 
able to defend his throne, and was driven beyond 
the Ebro. So, in November, Napoleon took the 
field in Spain, with 180,000 men. From Spain he 
announced to Murat that the Code-Napoleon, which 
was in force in the rest of Italy, would soon be 
applied to Rome. On the fourth of December, he 
entered Madrid, and then hurried back to Paris, to 
get ready for the Austrians. 

On the First of January, 1809, mindful of the 
day for greetings, and with an unworthy exhibition 
of his attention to details, he finds time to send a note 
to M. de Champagny, whom he had appointed Min- 
ister of the Exterior in place of the too capable 
Talleyrand, — he finds time to tell Champagny to send 
word to the Pope that he does not want a blessed 
candle on the second of February, adding that "there 
may be Popes in hell as well as cures" and that the 
candle blessed by his cure may be just as holy as 
one blessed by the Pope. 

In the month of April, he was fighting the Aus- 
trians. On the thirteenth of May he entered Vienna ; 
and, four days later (May 17), from the palace of 
Schonbrunn, he issued the formal decree for the sup- 
pression of the Temporal Power and the annexation 
of the Papal States. 

We cannot understand, — accustomed as we are 
to read everybody's affairs in the morning paper, 
better detailed, even, than they are to be found in 



24 The Dream of Bonaparte. 

everybody's memorandum, — we cannot understand 
the absolute secrecy that Napoleon enforced through- 
out his vast realm. The veil of the secrecy had not 
been pierced when the standard works were written 
from which in our early years we formed our first 
and lasting impressions of the great soldier. He had 
learned from William the Silent. Writing to his 
brother Louis to offer him the crown of Ferdinand, 
he says: *'A deed should be accomplished before it 
is known that we have even thought of it." This 
secrecy was carried to an exquisite degree in matters 
of religion, where his power to enforce it was less 
hindered, and the danger of publicity was greater. 
He wrote to his ministers, that he wanted the people 
to stop talking, altogether, about ecclesiastical mat- 
ters ; and for fourteen years, by a species of terrorism 
which he knew how to exercise, he kept the people in 
silence and in darkness. It will naturally be thought 
that, at his fall, all should have been exposed. And, 
indeed, much was written. The memoirs and diaries 
of persons who were used as agents or as victims of 
Napoleon's aspirations served to throw light upon his 
religious dealings. But the truth was locked up in 
Napoleon's private correspondence, and that was 
locked up in the government archives. We need not 
wonder at this. It was only the other day that the 
British archives were thrown open and our late gifted 
fellow-citizen, Mr. James F. Meline, drew therefrom 
the documents wherewith in his work "Mary Queen 
of Scots and Her Latest English Historian" he 
silenced, for the time being, the then latest accession 
to the conspirators against truth, James Anthony 



The Dream of Bonaparte. 25 

Froude. During the Second Empire, the third 
Napoleon made a show of editing the correspond- 
ence of his warlike uncle. This was given to the world 
as the material for a complete history of Napoleon 
and of his relations with Pius VII. The correspond- 
ence, as edited, follows events with the most minute 
exactness, and bears the air of that unquestionable 
strictness usually found in government pubhcations 
of official correspondence. It gives so much, that 
we should not dream of the possibility of anything 
being added. And yet, though filling twenty-one large 
volumes, it is by omission a studied falsification. It 
was but a prop to the Second Empire. Like the 
Plebiscite and the Life of Julius Cassar, it was but an 
illumination of the family name. Not long after, a 
new history was found. This new history was the 
suppressed correspondence. During the latter part 
of the Second Empire the documents of the archives 
were opened to the pubhc. M. D'Haussonville, a 
Protestant, profited by the occasion to sift the cor- 
respondence. The press laws were just then suffering 
a spell of relaxation; and he published the result of 
his investigations. Unfortunately, he published only 
five volumes. For when the government of Napoleon 
III. saw what he was about, it closed to him, person- 
ally, the archives that were open to the world at 
large. But this high-handed exclusion only adds the 
more weight to his volumes. Their special value lies 
in the exposure of Napoleon's great secret — his deal- 
ings with the Church — with Pope Pius VII. and with 
the clergy and Bishops of the Empire: — his great 
secret, so great, indeed, that Napoleon's Memoirs, 



26 TJie Dream of Bonaparte. 

dictated at St. Helena, when compared with the 
suppressed correspondence made public by M. 
D'Haussonville, prove to be a deliberate prevarication 
in all that part which refers to his relations with the 
Pope. His design of becoming practically Pope of 
the West was not to be accomplished ; and, so, he was 
resolved to hold his secret to the end and to bury it 
there with him on the wild rocks where only the 
waves would sing its requiem. 

On the tenth of June, 1809, the decree of the 
dethronement of Pius VH. was proclaimed in Rome 
with the braying of trumpets ; and the tricolor e of the 
Revolution floated over the Castle of Sant' Angelo. 
On the same evening the Papal protest was affixed to 
the Basilicas; and, shortly afterwards, the bull of 
excommunication, to the walls of St. Peter's, St. 
Mary Major and St. John Lateran. The bull 
comprised all "authors, promoters, counsellors or 
adherents." A curious story is current in Rome 
regarding the manner in which the bull was published. 
A carrier with a wine cask on his back rested his 
burden against the fagade of the Basilica. A little 
boy hidden away in the cask opened a little door and 
fastened the excommunication to the walls. It did 
not name Napoleon personally. It w^as visible but 
for a few moments when it was discovered and torn 
away. But enough had been done. The formal 
publication had taken place and it soon led to the 
seizure of the Pontiff. Two years later, in an official 
message to his National Council, Napoleon said that 
Pius had left Rome without the knowledge of the 
Emperor on the sixth of July, and had betaken 



The Dream of Bonaparte. 27 

himself to Savona, where His Majesty had him 
estabhshed with all due consideration. In his repeated 
declarations to his friends, and in the denials of his 
Memoirs that he had given orders for the arrest of the 
Pope, Napoleon never suspected that the press he 
silenced so effectually would play him false in giving 
to the world his letter of June 19, 1809, to his brother- 
in-law, Murat, the King of Naples . wherein he writes : 
"If the Pope, contrary to the spirit of his state and 
of the Gospel, preaches revolt and uses the immu- 
nity of his house to have circulars printed, he must 
be arrested." 

There is no manuscript to indicate that the bull 
was known to Napoleon when he wrote the letter to 
Murat ; but the letter was a standing order which 
was only too strictly obeyed. Pius did publish 
"circulars." The bull of excommunication was a 
strong one. The bull was published, as we have 
seen, on June 10, 1809. Towards three o'clock in 
the morning, Thursday, July 6, 1809, there was a 
sound of crashing doors in the Quirinal, and soon 
General Radet and his band stood before the Pontiff. 
At four o'clock Pius descended the grand staircase 
of the Quirinal with no equipment but his breviary 
and his crucifix in his hands ; and with Pacca at his 
side. A carriage, with blinds nailed down, was in 
waiting. Pope and Cardinal entered. The doors 
were locked. General Radet seated himself beside 
the driver, and the carriage, with its pontifical pris- 
oner, rolled along the streets of the silent city and 
out through the Porta Pia. Pontiff and Prime 
Minister, not knowing whither they were being 



28 The Dream of Bonaparte. 

hurried, produced their purses to see how they were 
provided against the emergencies of the journey ; 
and they laughed on finding that they were setting 
out in a manner bordering upon the apostoHc: they 
had between them about thirty-five cents. It was 
midnight on Saturday when they reached Florence. 
The Pope was too ill to go further. The carriage 
drew up at the Chartreuse and Pius was placed in 
the room that had been occupied by Pius VI. when 
the latter was being dragged along the same road ten 
years before. But, at three o'clock in the morning, a 
messenger came from EHza Bonaparte, who, fearing 
her brother's wrath should she harbor his prisoner, 
ordered Pius to proceed, no matter in what state of 
health he might be, — and that without delay. It was 
three o'clock and Sunday morning: and the Pontiff's 
petition to be allowed at least to assist at Mass was 
refused. He was carried off without his minister. 
Three days more of weary travel brought him to 
Genoa whence, as the feeling of the people ran high, 
he was conveyed, upon a litter, at nightfall, to the 
town of Alexandria. Thence the journey was 
renewed to Turin; and, from Turin into France, 
where he was lodged, as a prisoner, in the Prefecture 
at Grenoble. Here he met Pacca who had been 
separated from him at Florence; but they were soon 
forbidden all communication. Napoleon was out of 
humor. The people along the route had heard of 
the Pontiff's coming and, from the entry into France, 
his progress had been an ovation. The Emperor 
was still in Austria, and, on July i8, he wrote from 
Schonbrunn to Fouche, Minister of PoHce, charac- 



TJlc Dream of Bonaparte. 29 

terizing the arrest as an act of folly. In this letter 
he says : "They should have arrested Pacca and have 
left the Pope alone at Rome. But there is no remedy, 
now: what is done, is done." In the same letter, he 
ordered the Pontiff to be sent to Savona, a sea-port 
town of the Mediterranean ; and Pacca, to be con- 
fined in the Alpine fortress of Fenestrello. It is 
very significant of Napoleon's complete command 
over the press, that not one word was published 
regarding the seizure or the journey of the Pope. 
Absolute silence was enjoined regarding the excom- 
munication. A valet of the Pope, being asked if it 

really had been issued, said, " it was as much 

as his life was worth to answer, ..." And, lest even 
the missionaries should tell the people about the 
Pope, all missions and all missionary congregations 
were suppressed. 

Now the Emperor has the Pope ; — what shall he 
do with him? Make him the tool of his ambition! 
So, first, an effort was made to have the Pontiff live 
in princely style in his prison. Pius refused to lend 
himself to this outward show which they would thrust 
upon him to make it appear to the uninitiated that he 
was in voluntary exile and that the Emperor was 
protecting him and his estates. The only relaxation 
he permitted himself was to pace up and down the 
little walk in the walled garden of his episcopal 
prison. He was subjected to the strictest surveil- 
lance. But Napoleon was at a loss. Other rulers 
he had been able to reduce to his own terms. Here 
was a man who cared neither for life nor for crown ; 
but who, so long as the crown was his to defend, 



30 TJie Dreajii of Bonaparte. 

was determined to make life subservient to its rights. 
To rule not only the Empire but also the Church of 
the Empire, Napoleon needed to give it the outward 
forms of Catholicity: and he had genius enough to 
see that even he could not guide an irreligious people, 
for he said: "A society without religion is like a ship 
without a compass." He needed for his Bishops the 
Papal bulls, Papal institution and Papal sanction. 
He had already violated the concordat; and, more- 
over, Pius, left without Cardinals, Counsellors, books 
or documents would not give the bulls. In his 
dilemma, Napoleon said to the saintly M. Emery that, 
with six months of theology, he (Napoleon) could 
have cleared up the whole matter, because God had 
endowed him with "intellect." Without waiting for 
the half-year of theology he began to clear things up 
by ordering the Cardinals to Paris. The freedom of 
ordination was prohibited in the new departments of 
Kome and Thrasymene, created out of the Papal 
territory. Nineteen bishops were transported to 
France, and priests were transported to Corsica; and 
a decree of the Senate was passed, that the Pope and 
his successors should swear to the Emperor and his suc- 
cessors adhesion to the Galilean propositions of 1682. 
Just now, the Emperor had to look about him for 
another consort. We remember how he would have 
crowned as Empress of the French a woman who was 
not his wife — and how the marriage was celebrated at 
the midnight that ushered in the day of the coronation. 
After having tried various subterfuges to rid himself 
of Josephine he finally declared that he had not con- 
sented internally to the marriage. If that were true, 



TJie Dream of Bonaparte. 31 

if he said *'yes" without meaning it, then he told a 
sacrehgious lie and there was no marriage. If he 
meant the *'yes" when he said it, then he was teUing 
a lie in now saying that he did not mean it: and the 
second marriage was no marriage at all. But he took 
to himself Maria Louisa, Archduchess of Austria. 
The marriage was celebrated by proxy on March 11, 
1810 ; and on April 2, with Maria Louisa present in 
the Tuileries. Thirteen Cardinals with Consalvi at 
their head absented themselves. Napoleon had said 
to Fesch, that they would not dare to stay away. But 
they did dare. The vacant thrones were, removed, 
that they might not strike the eye of the Emperor. 
But when he entered the chapel, he looked, first for 
the Cardinals; and, seeing but fourteen, he cried 
out: "The fools, they are not here, the fools!" So 
he deprived the thirteen of their robes; confiscated 
their property and revenues ; and banished them to 
provincial towns where they had to live upon the alms 
of the charitable. Wearing the black soutane of the 
clergy, they were called the * 'black" Cardinals. The 
others were known as the ''red" Cardinals. On the 
same occasion he suppressed the Sulpicians for 
making much ado about nothing, because M. Emery, 
their superior, when consulted by a Cardinal, had 
told the latter that if he did not believe the marriage 
to be valid, he would do well to absent himself. 
"Much ado about nothing!" This was his serene 
highness's delivered estimate of conscience. 

Now that he had Austria by the hand, he was 
ready again for the Pope. He tested him through 
his red Cardinals and through von Lebzeltern, who 



32 TJie Dream of Bonaparte. 

had once been Austrian Ambassador at Rome. Leb- 
zeltern, in his letters to Metternich (May, 1810), 
assures the Chancellor, that the Pontiff is holding 
fast to conscience and to duty and to the firm convic- 
tion that moral force will triumph in the end. But 
Napoleon wanted the Bishops of his choice, and Pius 
refused to act without his Counsellors ; so that the 
question of having Papal confirmation for his Bishops 
was one that presented itself to Napoleon as Duncan 
to Macbeth, 

That is a step 
On which I must fall down, or else o'erleap, 
For in my way it lies. 

He began, therefore, by setting up Archbishops. 
The Vicar General of Paris found means to apply to 
the Pope and received from him a brief declaring 
that Maury, placed by Napoleon in Paris, had no 
jurisdiction. The brief was seized and so was the 
Vicar General. Napoleon ordered the Vicar to be 
shot; but, on representation that this would be 
impolitic, hid him away in the dungeons of Vincennes, 
and then imprisoned three Cardinals and a number 
of ecclesiastics who were supposed to be in sympathy. 
Next, he wrote (Dec. 31, 1810), to the Pope's keeper 
to say, that his Majesty was able to distinguish the 
doctrine of Jesus Christ from that of Gregory VII. ; 
and he opened the new year by giving an illustration 
of the methods he could employ to urge his distinc- 
tions. Skilful lock-pickers were sent from Paris to 
Savona, and, at early morn, when all were in deep 
sleep, a most minute search was made of the Papal 
apartments. Doors and drawers were forced; and 



The Dream of Bonaparte. 33 

even the clothes of the Pontiff and his household 
were unsewed, so that no paper might escape the 
imperial vigilance. And as the Pope was taking his 
little walk in the garden, on the same day, his poor 
writing desk was forced open, where he had some 
books, his Breviary and the Office of Our Lady. A 
few pieces of gold, also, that had been given to him 
as an alms, were found in Mgr. Doria's chamber. 
When Pius was told of the imperial burglary, he 
merely said: "The purse: let them keep it. But my 
Breviary and the Office of Our Lady ! what will they 
do with those?" To make the spoliation complete 
the Fisherman's ring was demanded of him. He 
took it from his finger; but, not knowing to what uses 
it might be put, before handing it over he broke it in 
twain. He was deprived of everything that might 
give him communication with the outer world — of 
books, pen and paper; and spies were lodged in all 
the inns of Savona to give the alarm on the presence 
of anyone who might be suspected of having come 
thither for the purpose of conferring in some secret 
manner with the Pontiff. Now there began to appear 
in the Moniteiir, the only reading matter allowed to 
the Pope, addresses of adhesion to the Emperor, — 
addresses coming from the Ecclesiastics and Cathe- 
dral Chapters, especially the Chapters of Italy, but 
in reality made to the order of Napoleon himself. 
The Mo7iiteur^2iS\ns organ. Prison and Press were his 
weapons. In his Memoirs he states that the number 
of clergymen detained was fifty-three. M. D'Haus- 
sonville says: "Items of this kind so readily escape 
the memory." Now, we know that in a year from 



34 The Dream of Bonaparte. 

the decree making Rome the second city of the 
Empire, thirteen Cardinals had been put under police 
supervision; nineteen bishops of the Roman states 
had been carried into France and treated in the eame 
manner, and more than two hundred priests had been 
banished to the Island of Corsica alone, etc., etc. 
But news of this character was under an absolute 
and universal ban. 

For two years Napoleon had had an Ecclesias- 
tical Commission at work to discover in what way he 
might do without the Pope. The Commission 
reported in favor of a National Council. He then 
called a preliminary meeting. He opened the meet- 
ing by a speech against Pius VH., and demanded 
what punishment Canon law decreed against a Pope 
who preached rebellion and civil war. There was 
only one man in that assembly who had the courage 
of his convictions. Emery, when called upon, did 
not shrink from the duty of telling the truth to the 
Emperor. The Emperor respected him for it. A 
few days later (March i6, 1811) Cardinal Fesch 
called upon his imperial nephew to speak of some 
ecclesiastical matters. The Emperor broke out: 
"Hush! You are an ignoramus. Go, look for 
Emery and learn something about the canons." Still, 
such is the wont of tyrants, respect did not shield 
Emery from vengeance. The petition of Fesch to 
permit Emery to spend his last days amongst his 
brethren of Saint-Sulpice was refused. 

Napoleon was anxious to proclaim, at the open- 
ing of his Council, the submission of the Pope. He 
dispatched three of his prelates to Savona. Pius was 



The Dream of Bonaparte. 35 

surrounded by a network of spies ready to catch 
every word that fell from his lips. His allowance 
was reduced to a pittance and his physician was 
bribed. Napoleon wrote from Amsterdam that the 
physician was to be paid 12,000 francs a year from 
the time of quitting Rome. He says (Sept. i, 181 1), 
'*Dr. Porta has only to name his terms." The 
keeper had written (May 11, 1811), '*M. Porta serves 
us admirably." They were looking for the favorable 
moment. The Pope demanded his advisers. These 
were refused him. He was without books, pen, 
paper, — and was even shut off from his Confessor. 
He could take neither sleep nor nourishment, and 
was plied from all sides. The "favorable moment" 
came. Dr. Porta was of great service. When Pius 
was in what the keeper, writing to the Emperor, 
styled a state of "mental alienation" some verbal 
concessions were obtained (May 18, 1811). The 
prelates, leaving a memorandum of them on the 
chimney piece, started early the next morning for 
Paris. But before morning the Pontiff was sufficiently 
himself to read the memorandum intelligently, and 
he ordered carriers to be sent after the prelates to 
revoke everything. 

Napoleon was foiled. Still he would have his 
Council. As a prelude, he sent M. de Gallois to a 
dungeon in Vincennes for being "too clever." To 
divert the minds of the people from the spectacle of 
ninety-five bishops in mitre and cope assembled at 
Notre Dame on the 17th of June, 181 1, he opened 
the Legislative Assembly, in person, the day before. 
The bishops were not docile ; so he broke up the 



36 The Dream of Bonaparte. 

meeting and ordered four bishops to the dungeons. 
The members of the Council were then threatened in 
private. After this they were called together again, 
and with only thirteen or fourteen dissenting voices, 
voted the Emperor's demands regarding the naming, 
institution and consecration of bishops. Eight Arch- 
bishops and Bishops carried the demands to the Pope 
and three red Cardinals with an Archbishop were 
sent as his advisers. After being subjected, for 
a month, ,to collusion and misrepresentation, the 
Pontiff was induced to sign; and he wrote the 
Emperor a letter breathing only kindness. 

But there was a Providence again to interfere. 
Napoleon was nearly ready for his Russian campaign. 
Why not wait until it was over, — and, then, proclaim 
himself Czar of the West. He had but petty conces- 
sions in comparison. He must break with the Pope. 
He ordered perfect silence to be kept about the brief , 
and that the demands of the Council should be pub- 
lished as state laws. Then like the wolf he complains 
that the lamb is muddying the water. He wants the 
bulls. He is told that he has not allowed the Pope 
to have his secretaries. Then he complains to Pius 
that the brief speaks of the '^Pope's Authority" and 
of the Roman Church as the mother of all the 
Churches, and he insists that his power of nomina- 
tion must extend to Rome. The prelates at Savona 
were ordered to approach the Pontiff. But the result 
was absolute refusal. Pius saw that he had been 
betrayed ; declared that he had had an inspiration in 
his prayers: and that no threats could move him. 
He found occasion to write a letter to Napoleon (Jan. 



The Dream of Bonaparte . 37 

24, 181 2), closing with the prayer, that God might 
pour abundant blessings on the Emperor. Napoleon 
answered with what in M. D'Haussonville's work 
makes up more than four pages of the grossest insult. 
The keeper wrote that Pius was strengthening him- 
self with the beHef that God would interfere. 
Napoleon wrote to have the rigor of his imprisonment 
renewed — to have him deprived of books, pen and 
paper. Then he put under military service the sem- 
inarists of Bishops who had not done his bidding ; 
removed the Sulpicians from every seminary in 
France; sent the General of the Lazarists to Fenes- 
trello; broke up all the houses of the Sisters of 
Charity: — and set out for Russia. 

Halting at Dresden he held a grand levee where 
he was honored by the Emperor and Empress of 
Austria and all the kings and princes and nobles of 
Germany. It may have been that he was fired by 
this homage with the phantom realization of his 
dream — not an Emperor of Germany, but a Pope 
and a Papal Court at his feet ! He had suppressed 
the temporal power of the Holy See, and annexed 
Rome to the Empire. He must establish the Pope 
at Paris or Avignon with "splendid palaces", as M. 
Thiers wrote, "and a salary of two milHon francs 
. . . . but subject to the Emperor of the French, 
as the Russian Church is to the Czars ; and, Islamism, 
to the Sultans." It was in the midst of his victories 
over the Austrians that he had pronounced the tem- 
poral deposition of the Pope ; and it was upon the 
very day of Wagram that Pius had been carried off 
from Rome. It may have been now that, after a 



■38 The Di'eam of Bonaparte. 

Moscow or a Petersburg, with his foot on the neck 
of the Czar, and, around him, the greatest army 
that Europe had seen, he purposed to proclaim the 
actuahty of his dream — his spiritual supremacy in 
Europe. Immediately upon his securing Maria 
Louisa of Austria, he instructed his Minister of 
Worship (April 15, 1810), to draw up a detailed 
plan which was to be decreed and executed in sec- 
tions as circumstances might dictate. His general 
charge to the minister was, that "Matters were to be 
determined according to what they should be, and 
absolutely, as if there were no Pope." However, 
now on the very day of the grand levee at Dresden, 
he wrote back to France to have new persecutions 
inaugurated against the Sisters of Charity, and to 
have the Pope removed from Savona to the Imperial 
Chateau of Fontainebleau near Paris. He specified 
all the details of the journey. The Pope should pass 
through Turin, Chambery and Lyons by night, and 
was to wear no mark of his Episcopal dignity. The 
order reached Savona on the ninth of June, 181 2. 
Pius was awakened from his siesta and told that in a 
few hours he would have to set out for France. The 
cross stitched upon his white shoes was cut away, 
and his shoes were stained with ink. His pectoral 
cross was taken off. A black hat was put upon him ; 
and, covered with a long coat found amongst his 
effects, he walked through the streets of Savona to 
where the carriage was in waiting outside the walls. 
For seven days, his dinner was brought up to his 
apartments, at Savona, and the candles were lighted 
as though for his Mass : and the keeper made official 



The Dream of Bonaparte. 39 

calls upon the empty rooms, so that the departure 
might not be suspected. At length the Cortege 
reached the monastery of Mount Cenis. It seemed 
that the Pope was about to die. A surgeon was 
called. He was told, before being shown in, that he 
was to do all in his power for the relief of the sick 
man — that he would doubtless recognize him — but 
that if he divulged, there was an end to his liberty 
and perhaps to his life. Word was sent to Turin for 
instructions. The instructions were, to continue the 
journey. It was the 14th of June. The Pontiff had 
received the last sacraments that morning ; but the 
surgeon managed to restore him sufficiently to be 
able to move him, fitted up a bed in the carriage, 
and accompanied him the rest of the way— until, 
after three weeks of helpless agony, the prisoner 
arrived at the Imperial Chateau of Fontainebleau, 
where he lay for three other weeks upon a bed of 
pain. He was in the midst of princely splendor and 
surrounded by the court prelates ; and in the Travel- 
ler' s guide to Paris, the Archiepiscopal Palace was 
named the Papal Palace. But Pius who had lived as 
a prisoner at Savona refused all outward pomp and 
lived as a prisoner at Fontainebleau. 

But there is a tide in the affairs of men. Napoleon 
returned from Russia. The contrary elements had 
leagued against him. Fire and ice had shattered 
that great army. The historian says: "The muskets 
dropped from the frozen arms of those who bore 
them." On the i8th of December, 181 2, Napoleon 
entered Paris as a fugitive. Still he would make a 
last stroke. He must conquer by foul means or by 



40 The Dream of Bonaparte. 

fair. Dr. Porta was still under pay and a letter is 
written from Fontainebleau, that they are watching 
for the favorable moment. Napoleon appeared at 
Fontainebleau and confronted the Pontiff. He made 
outward demonstrations of affection. He remained 
for five days working, with the red Cardinals, at the 
Pope. Of those five days' doings little is known, 
but Pius signed (Jan. 25, 1813) the preliminary draft 
of what is called the fatal Concordat of Fontaine- 
bleau ; and although he laid down the condition that, 
before promulgation, each separate article was to be 
discussed in Secret Consistory by the Cardinals, 
Napoleon sent off the draft to be published without 
delay, and ordered the Bishops to have the Te Deum 
of thanksgiving sung from Paris to Marseilles. 

The Emperor departed. He thought he now 
had his Pope. The prison doors were opened. The 
black Cardinals, at liberty, came flocking to Fon- 
tainebleau; Di Pietro from Vincennes, Pacca from 
Fenestrello, and Consalvi from the poverty of his 
exile. They found the Pontiff helpless in body and 
crushed in spirit and a prey to the agonies of grief. 
Pacca had heard, along the route, suspicions of both 
"foul play and unlawful concession." Now that they 
were upon the spot, Pacca suggested the course 
which Di Pietro and Consalvi approved; and Consalvi 
took the responsibility of telling the Pontiff that 
there remained for him one remedy: he must perform 
an act of humility. He must make an unreserved 
retractation of the fatal document. It must be 
entirely in his own hand-writing, and in the form of 
a letter to the Emperor. But Pius could not hold a 



The Dream of Bonaparte . 41 

pen long enough to write a letter; and, besides, such 
was the system of espionage, that all the papers 
locked up in his room were submitted to inspection 
every day during his mass. But Consalvi was equal 
to the emergency. With Di Pietro he met the Holy 
Father every day after his mass, when Pius wrote a 
line or two. Again at four o'clock in the afternoon, 
in a chance meeting with Pacca, Pius wrote another 
line or two. Pacca always carried off the unfin- 
ished letter to the house of the aged Cardinal 
Pignatelli, whose broken health obliged him to reside 
in the town instead of at the palace. He tells us 
that so anxious was he about his letter, so fearful 
of being searched, that, in his journeys to the town, 
he was stifled by a burning fever. Each morning, 
a trusty messenger from Pignatelli placed the precious 
document in the hands of Di Pietro or Consalvi. 
Finally on the 24th of March, 1813, the letter, a 
long letter, was finished and . signed and sent to 
the Emperor; and the Pontiff delivered an allocu- 
tion to all the Cardinals informing them of what had 
been done. Napoleon ordered his -Minister of Wor- 
ship to keep the letter an inviolable secret. But the 
work was done. Every Cardinal had a copy of the 
letter. Napoleon turned Fontainebleau into a prison 
and clad the Chamberlain in a jailor's garb. Di 
Pietro was dragged from his bed and hurried to a 
dungeon at Auxonne. Napoleon thrust his Bishops 
into sees right and left; but the chapters resigned in 
their presence. The Seminarists disbanded, protest- 
ing against the spurious jurisdiction. Napoleon 
retaliated by forcing the Seminarists into the army. 



42 The Dream of Bonaparte. 

Those who were physically incapable of military 
service, he imprisoned. The prison of Vincennes 
again opened its gates to the purple. Poor Fesch, 
the Cardinal uncle, fled in terror to Lyons where he 
said to Madame Bonaparte: "It is all over with my 
nephew. . . . Every one who touches the ark 
meets the same destiny." 

It was the hour of collapse. Russia had just 
organized the sixth co-alition. We know the super- 
human efforts of Napoleon whilst his friends were 
deserting. He tried to gain the Pope through every 
species of negotiation: until, at length, hearing that 
even his faithful Murathad gone over to the co-alition, 
and presuming that this was with a view to the 
possession of the Roman States, he sent word to the 
Pope (Jan. i8, 1814) that he would treat with him 
for the restoration of his temporal power, saying 
that he preferred "to see the Roman States in the 
hands of the Pope rather than in those of any other 
sovereign, whoever he might be." Pius replied that 
an act of justice could not furnish matter for a treaty. 
At the same time -he wrote to Mgr. de Beaumont, the 
negotiator, to say, on his part, to the Emperor, that 
he bore his Majesty no ill will, — religion would not 
permit of such a thing. 

The allies were closing in about Paris. It would 
never do for them to restore to his rights the prisoner 
of Fontainebleau. Besides, the star of fortune might 
rise again; and, if so, the Pontiff must still be in the 
imperial grasp. On the 23rd of January, three car- 
riages drove up mysteriously to the Chateau; the 
Pontiff was called upon to set out for an unknown 



The Dream of Bonaparte. 43 

destination ; and soon the cannon were booming 
about the deserted palace. Oh, the wonderful deeds 
of those days ! We have read of De Bouillon and 
Coeur de Lion wielding both mace and battle axe 
and laying low whole scores of Paynims that pressed 
upon them. So Napoleon wielded whole armies, 
flying from one to the other to lend the inspiration 
of his presence — here a blow and there a blow — 
crushing, scattering, cutting to pieces the forces of 
the co-alition that were radiating towards the Capital. 
They had just refused an armistice after Montmirail : 
now they asked for peace. Napoleon tore up the 
paper and, though they were at his very gates, said 
scornfully: "I am nearer to Vienna than they are to 
Paris." So they pledged themselves (March ist) 
to pursue him to the end. With one companion, 
and followed by the Chamberlain-gaoler, M. Lagorse, 
Pius was still pursuing the devious unfrequented 
routes, as ordered by Napoleon for the sake of 
securing silence and delay in the journey from Fon- 
tainebleau to his secret destination — which was 
Savona. But the Emperor soon saw what was 
overtaking himself. He would never have his foes 
undo his work. On the loth of March he signed 
the decree restoring the Papal territory, and on 
the i8th at Savona the keeper said to his prisoner : 
*'Your Holiness is at liberty and can set out for Rome 
to-morrow." The next day was the Feast of Otir 
Lady of Deliverance. Pius said mass on that day for 
the first time in the Cathedral of Savona, and set out 
for Rome. At Cesena, Joachim Murat, simulating 
ignorance of the Pontiff's object in returning to 



44 The Dream of Bonaparte. 

Italy, asked for an audience, and presented a 
paper to which he had obtained some signatures 
asking the alHes for a secular Prince, sc. for Murat. 
Pius took the paper. Without opening it he put it 
quietly into the fire and said: "Is there anything 
now to hinder us from entering Rome?" As he 
journeyed on, passing through town after town amid 
the salvos of artillery, away to the north at that very 
table where he had put his signature to the fatal 
Concordat of Fontainebleau, Napoleon Bonaparte 
was signing the farewell to his greatness. Poison 
only added bodily anguish to the bitterness of the 
warrior's soul. And, whilst Pius was reigning amid 
a joyous people, there came Elba and the hundred 
days and Waterloo and St. Helena: and our story is 
told. 

For six years Pius had been a prisoner at Savona 
and Fontainebleau: for six years Napoleon made 
expiation on the barren rock, far from the society of 
men, far from that empire of sixty million souls. 
There, in the ocean-storm, he had leisure to study 
the futile work of fourteen years. The low mist 
driven before the wind — the murmuring surge, — the 
rolling foam — dim cloudlets that gathered like meet- 
ing armies, their ragged thunder edges bending to 
the deep — the hastened dusk — the rising waters dis- 
colored from the bed of ocean — the floods of flame 
— the din of battling clouds — the fractured canopy — 
the sweeping blast— the mingled waters of wave and 
sky hurled through the midnight upon the ocean rock 
to force it from its very base — then; morning across 
the waters, revealing the rock still there, crowned 



The Dream of Bonaparte. _ 45 

with its humble thyme, calm, unshaken as it had 

been in the storms of centuries: this was the ever 

returning reminder of what his own life had been 

from the day of the grand Te Deiun in the Ambrosian 

Cathedral, vainly spent in beating upon that other 

rock against which 

" — all human skill, all human strength 
Avail not — ." 

As he sits there solitary on the cliff, shall we 
judge him? Shall we try him by the formula, by 
the law of motives; try him by the decalogue, the 
law that's writ upon the heart of every man? "Thou 
shalt not have strange gods before me." The idol 
of ambition, the Dagon he had raised in the temple 
of his heart lies shattered, for he had dared to place 
before it even the ark of the Most High. "Thou 
shalt not kill." The blood of the Due D'Enghien is 
still crying out; bones are bleaching on a hundred 
battle grounds; the prisons have not yet told their 
tale. "Thou shalt not covet." Peoples have rights 
and so have crowns : the impoverished of his sword 
shall not be named in the books of men. "Thou 
shalt not bear false witness." His own true words 
bear witness to the false : there stand Maria Louisa 
and Josephine. 

There is one who does not pass sentence — the 
man who has been the victim. When Pius hears 
that his persecutor is suffering, he charges even 
Consalvi to write to the allied sovereigns, and 
especially to the Prince Regent, in behalf of the exile 
at St. Helena. He says that he would be overjoyed 
to be able to do something to lighten the distress of 



46 The Dream of Bonaparte. 

Napoleon ; that, in view of the good beginnings, he 
forgets all that followed ; and that Savona and Fon- 
tainebleau were mere errors or the illusive day 
dreams of ambition. 



Pacca, B. Cardinale: Memorie storiche. 

Artaud de MontoR: Vie du Pape Pie VII. 

J. Cretineau-Joly: L'Eglise Romaine en face de la Revolution. 

Memoires du Cardinal Consalvi. 
COMPTE D'Haussonville: L'Eglise Romaine et le Premier Empire. 
Mary H. Allies: The life of Pope Pius the Seventh. 



